Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: John R on May 17, 2009, 05:08:39 pm

Title: Garden delights
Post by: John R on May 17, 2009, 05:08:39 pm
A couple of shots from James Gardens in Toronto. The garden may be a delight but shooting macros is hard work and I have sore knees to prove it.

JMR
Title: Garden delights
Post by: dalethorn on May 18, 2009, 12:04:24 am
There's a pretty good separation of detail on these flowers, which itself is hard to do unless you control the lighting well.
Title: Garden delights
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on May 18, 2009, 03:42:41 am
Quote from: John R
A couple of shots from James Gardens in Toronto. The garden may be a delight but shooting macros is hard work and I have sore knees to prove it.
The first looks to me as if too much has been cropped off the bottom: it feels uncomfortable and unbalanced. The definition is good, though. My sympathies to your knees.

FWIW

Jeremy
Title: Garden delights
Post by: wolfnowl on May 18, 2009, 11:27:05 am
Quote from: kikashi
The first looks to me as if too much has been cropped off the bottom: it feels uncomfortable and unbalanced. The definition is good, though. My sympathies to your knees.

FWIW

Jeremy

That's exactly what I was thinking.  Love the colours, but I would include more of the stem.

Mike.
Title: Garden delights
Post by: John R on May 18, 2009, 04:48:56 pm
Thanks for the comments, Mike, Dale and Jeremy. I cropped the tulip in the manner I did because that was the only way to get the beautiful bokeh and the arrangement of the other tulips in juxtaposition to the main tulip. I personally think it is well balanced despite not having a stem. I should add that sometimes I found impossible to see the true quality of the bokeh given the ambient light levels.

JMR
Title: Garden delights
Post by: dalethorn on May 18, 2009, 04:53:27 pm
Quote from: John R
Thanks for the comments, Mike, Dale and Jeremy. I cropped the tulip in the manner I did because that was the only way to get the beautiful bokeh and the arrangement of the other tulips in juxtaposition to the main tulip. I personally think it is well balanced despite not having a stem. I should add that sometimes I found impossible to see the true quality of the bokeh given the ambient light levels.
JMR

I just did a little test crop on #1, cropping off the left part, and I think it looks terrific that way, since the colors are all strong on the right side, giving it better symmetry.
Title: Garden delights
Post by: John R on May 18, 2009, 05:18:37 pm
Quote from: dalethorn
I just did a little test crop on #1, cropping off the left part, and I think it looks terrific that way, since the colors are all strong on the right side, giving it better symmetry.
Dale, of course, I meant cropping in the field with the camera, not in PP. After the fact, well we can crop seven ways to Sunday. Although I do not have any great reason or inhibition to cropping, as a general rule I like my images full or nearly full frame. It is not always easy with a non-full view frame camera to crop critically.

JMR
Title: Garden delights
Post by: dalethorn on May 18, 2009, 09:42:13 pm
Quote from: John R
Dale, of course, I meant cropping in the field with the camera, not in PP. After the fact, well we can crop seven ways to Sunday. Although I do not have any great reason or inhibition to cropping, as a general rule I like my images full or nearly full frame. It is not always easy with a non-full view frame camera to crop critically.
JMR

I wasn't thinking about any other cropping, in-camera or PP.  I was just taking a fresh look based on other peoples' comments, and thought that a crop of the soft area off of the left would increase the average amount of color in the image (best explanation I can give off the top of my head), which in my view would compensate for the lack of an interesting stem below the flower (if that were possible, who knows?)  But it's interesting, isn't it, that many experienced artists would take a look at that image and immediately think "where's the stem?"  I could be reading this wrong, but hey, comments are free.